Artificial pre-lighted Christmas trees, where the seasonal lights are incorporated on or with the tree, have become a popular alternative to both live trees and unlighted artificial trees. These trees are usually sectional for easy storage, with some lighted trees routing power for the lights up through the trunk of the tree with electrical connectors built into the ends of each tree section to distribute power to each section. A concern with such pre-lighted Christmas trees is the use of standard electrical receptacles for powering the lights up through the trunk of the tree. The vast majority of electrical receptacles are of the type that include one or more sets of fixed-position female electrical contacts that are configured to receive prongs (male electrical contracts) of appropriately oriented cord-connected plugs. Receptacles of this type are not part of a fused circuit and allow the cord to be of any gauge wire creating a further risk of undesirable electrical danger.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a lighted artificial Christmas tree with a 3-wire safety ground connection and a non-standard female socket that overcomes the limitations of the prior art by allowing only non-standard fused plugs of a particular configuration and wire gauge to be used with the non-standard female socket. These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be explained and will become obvious to one skilled in the art through the summary of the invention that follows.